Monday, May 1, 2017

Everything Revolves Around Whom?

“God helps those who help others.” ~ Amit Abraham,
Personality Development Through Positive Thinking

There I was, minding my own
business, quietly driving my car to work, enjoying the bright spring morning.The road I am on is a main road through a
nearby community.I see a car coming up
from the side street, and notice that it is not slowing, even though they have
the stop sign.I know that this person
will blow through the stop sign and pay no heed to the car that has the right
of way (which would be me).And, sure
enough, there he went.This was clearly
a case where someone does not care about the other people on the road.

There is the Zig Ziglar
tenet that says, “You can get everything you want in life if you help enough
people get what they want in life.”This
presumes that one of the key paths to success is being willing to help others
and not focus only on yourself. By helping
to ensuring other’s successes, both you and the people you help have the
opportunity to succeed together.Most of
the successful people have not been so by themselves, but have provided success
for the people they surround themselves with, including the ability to increase
wealth (think of the number of millionaires created from Microsoft’s
beginning).The commitment and mindset
has to be REAL and part of one’s nature and values.I am amazed at the number people I observe
that are in it only for themselves, such as in the following examples:

To get home from work, I travel on the NY
subway system between my office to the Port Authority.The general rule of thumb is that the people
on the platform open up a path for the people exiting the subway – makes sense.This past week, as I had one foot on the
subway and one off, someone elbowed their way in saying excuse me, I need to
get on this subway.Where she expected
me to go, I am not sure.

When leaving a plane, or a bus, most of the
people follow the basic rule of thumb – passengers exit from the front moving towards
the back one row at a time.This is a
very organized process.However, every
so often there is that one person that jumps up from the back and elbows their way
to the front.We were recently on a
flight from Fort Lauderdale to Newark, where we notice the actions a man and wife.By the way that they were dressed, they clearly
were a religious couple.We tend to
think in our minds (not to judge) that religious folks tend to have a higher
standard.Guess who was the first to jump
up, did not let other people in (per the order of seating) and pushed their way
forward?I am not sure where his religion
stresses “me first.”

I would be remiss if I only
pointed out the acts of selfishness and not noticed acts of selflessness /
kindness / consideration.During rush
hour times, a seat on the subway can be a rare and precious commodity.On occasion, people will give up their seats
(including me) for an elder person, someone that is pregnant, a child or with a
disability.I sat next to a young woman
that whenever someone she thought would like to sit actually got up from her
seat and would walk over to that person to offer them her spot.Many times when a seat becomes vacant, it is
a rush to grab it.Not in this
case.Even though the response she
received each time was, “No, thank you,” it was great to see that she still
tried to reach out to be considerate of the those around her.